A telegram this morning advises me of the death of General
R. C. Hale, the brother of Mrs. Welles, at Reedsville in the County of Mifflin,
Pennsylvania. He was the efficient Quartermaster-General of Pennsylvania, a
good officer and capable and upright man. The public never had a more faithful
and honest officer.
Met Sumner and went with him to the War Department. The
President was there, and we read dispatches received from General Meade. There
was a smart fight, but without results, near Gettysburg yesterday. A rumor is
here that we have captured six thousand prisoners, and on calling again this
evening at the War Department I saw a telegram which confirms it. General
Reynolds is reported killed. The tone of Meade's dispatch is good.
Met the elder Blair this evening at his son's, the
Postmaster-General. The old gentleman has been compelled to leave his pleasant
home at Silver Spring, his house being in range of fire and Rebel raiders at
his door. He tells me McClellan wrote Stanton after the seven days' fight near
Richmond that he (Stanton) had sacrificed that army. Stanton replied
cringingly, and in a most supplicating manner, assuring McClellan he, Stanton,
was his true friend. Mr. F. P. Blair assures me he has seen the letters. He
also says he has positive, unequivocal testimony that Stanton acted with the
Secessionists early in the War and favored a division of the Union. He mentions
a conversation at John Lee's house, where Stanton set forth the advantages that
would follow from a division.
Mr. Montgomery Blair said Stanton was talking Secession to
one class, and holding different language to another; that while in Buchanan's
Cabinet he communicated Toucey's treason to Jake Howard and secretly urged the
arrest of Toucey. During the winter of 1860 and 1861, Stanton was betraying the
Buchanan Administration to Seward, disclosing its condition and secrets, and
that for his treachery to his then associates and his becoming the tool of
Seward, he was finally brought into the present Cabinet.
These things I have heard from others also, and there have
been some facts and circumstances to corroborate them within my own knowledge.
Mr. Seward, who has no very strong convictions and will never sacrifice his
life for an opinion, had no belief that the insurrection would be serious or of
long continuance. Familiar with the fierce denunciations and contentions of
parties in New York, where he had, from his prominent position and strong
adherents, been accustomed to excite and direct, and then modify, the excesses
roused by anti-Masonry and anti-rent outbreaks by pliable and liberal action,
he entertained no doubt that he should have equal success in bringing about a
satisfactory result in national affairs by meeting exaction with concessions.
He was strengthened in this by the fact that there was no adequate cause for a
civil war, or for the inflammatory, excited, and acrimonious language which
flowed from his heated associates in Congress. Through the infidelity of
Stanton he learned the feelings and designs of the Buchanan Administration,
which were not of the ultra character of the more impassioned Secession
leaders. One of the Cabinet already paid court to him; Dix1 and some
others he knew were not disunionists; and, never wanting faith in his own skill
and management, he intended, if his opponents would not go with him, as the
last alternative to go with them and call a convention to remodel the
Constitution. Until some weeks after Mr. Lincoln's inauguration Seward never
doubted that he could by some expedient — a convention or otherwise — allay the
storm. Some who ultimately went into the Rebellion also hoped it. Both he and
they overestimated his power and influence. Stanton in the winter of 1861
whispered in his ear state secrets, it was understood, because Seward was to be
first in the Cabinet of Lincoln, who was already elected. The Blairs charge
Stanton with infidelity to party and to country from mere selfish
considerations, and with being by nature treacherous and wholly unreliable.
Were any overwhelming adversity to befall the country, they look upon him as
ready to betray it.
______________
1 John A. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury In 1861.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 354-6
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